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The “mystery of faith” entails the article of faith: Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and, finally, his Parousia.
The Book of Revelation not only gives us insight into heavenly events, but also a fresh perspective here on the Earth, particularly where the Lord dwells in the overlap between heaven and earth — the Divine Liturgy. While the caesars of this world seem to wield control over the nations (who give them religious fealty), Saint John tells us that it is really the Creator God who moves all things to the omega point of cosmic renewal and the vindication of the Lamb and his followers. That reality, revealed to the Beloved Apostle, is heralded in the liturgy of the Divine Service during the “Memorial Acclamation,” also known as the mysterium fidei: when Christ Jesus manifests as the Eucharist for his holy church. It turns out to be our most subversive song.
Christians give fealty to Jesus alone.
The leaders of nations and movements and religions aren’t directing history. And neither is their marginalization and repudiation of Christ’s people definitive (Rev. 14:1). Instead, it is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who control history and have already pronounced vindication to the baptized. [1] All authority in heaven and earth has consolidated upon Jesus (Matt. 28:18). He reigns and Christians are free, both from the demands of the law to justify and from the machinations of the world. This is because the baptized already participate in the renewal of creation. That’s what the Memorial Acclamation proclaims in its poignant tercet: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ shall come again!” The Acclamation says, in just ten words, something to this effect:
Jesus is the Christ of God, gaining his victory on the cross; this same Jesus was resurrected and reigns with all authority as the Ever-Living-One; and Jesus will come again to bring the power and fruit of his death, resurrection, and ascension to bear on all creation. Therefore, let it be known, there are no other gods to worship. There are no other lords to command allegiance. Jesus was, and is, and ever will be the King of kings.
It’s a song of subversion hailed in the face of the old world order. Christians give fealty to Jesus alone.
John’s vision of the “the Almighty who was and is and is to come” (Rev. 4:8) sets a foundation for the Memorial Acclamation. It’s time signature of past, present, and future enters the song of praise for the multitude of believers who assemble before the Christ of the Eucharist. It is the Holy Church that renders the song explicitly Christological: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ shall come again. The Almighty is Jesus. He rules as the sovereign potentate everywhere and always and therefore over all. It is this song, now in the mouth of the baptized dispersed throughout the “principalities and powers” of this world that appears immediately after the institutional narrative (verba) of the Eucharist. It’s location within the liturgy is conspicuous, intimating that Christ, ascended in heaven and elevated during Holy Communion, is our God, Savior, and King. Each Eucharist celebration, then, placards both the hope of every Christian for comprehensive renewal and emboldens us to resist “the kingdoms of this world.”
It’s all possible because Jesus was once and for all crucified — that was his victory which achieved atonement and broke the dark powers under which the world had languished: “Christ has died.” Scandal of scandals, our King was executed by Caesar and we still hail him over Caesar and esteem ourselves citizens of Christ’s kingdom.
In Christ’s body, the old world is put to death with its powers and powerbrokers. The result is a new creation. We, too, are “a new creation” as a result of being united to Jesus’ availing death and resurrection (2 Cor. 5:17). Our participation in resurrection life gives us the sensibility to experience not only a foretaste of what is to come as the enduring cosmic order, it publicly announces and celebrates Holy Communion as our here-and-now reality: “Christ has died. Christ is risen.” Humanity justified and renewed in Christ, with even the elements of the cosmic renewed by his holy presence — they, and we, are holy. And there’s a sharp edge to this meal: Holy Communion promotes a disruption to all “powers and principalities” (Eph. 6:12). What otherwise would hold us captive during the week is altogether disrupted by Christ tearing a hole in the world to enter as the Bread of Life and Medicine of Immortality “in the presence of [our] enemies” (Ps. 23:5).
This is the course the world has taken by Jesus’ achievements and direction. And it will continue in this fashion with Christ in charge and dispensing saving, renewing grace, until the day of his return to consummate the age on the Last Day (Rev. 1:7): “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”
In the first-century Upper Room and throughout the early generations of Christianity, Holy Communion possessed no obligatory oblation to Caesar. So far from ceding to the Roman Empire’s prohibition on political resistance by confessing kaiser kyrios (“Caesar is Lord”) and pouring out a sacrifice to him, Christians affirmed Christos kyrios (“Christ is Lord”) and had his sacrifice poured into themselves — becoming one with him and therefore his rule. It is fitting, therefore, that such an occasion be outfitted with a song of such magnitude that it both captured the scope of his reign and reverberated throughout the ages. It had to counter and nullify what David deSilva records was a Roman song of praise to Zeus: “Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus will be. O great Zeus!” [2]
Western Christians inherited the Roman Rite that transmitted the Memorial Acclamation and have no less reason to sing these subversive verses in the hearing of the worldly “powers that be.” While it flickered in and out of Lutheran use until the twentieth century, it has returned with great affection in many congregations. As in the earliest versions, following the “Words of Institution” (verba), the celebrant chants either “The mystery of faith” (mysterium fidei) or “Let us proclaim the mystery of faith.” This preface to the triplet proclamation was introduced, it is believed, by Leo the Great (440-461). Not only does it provide a prompt for responding communicants, it also connects the Sacrament to Christ himself, as the word mysterium mirrors the Greek word μυστήριον, which when taken into Latin frequently becomes sacramentum — sacrament. Jesus is the sacrament.
And, so, whenever Christ, the God-man, is with us, then there’s sacrament. From his incarnation to his crucifixion and ascension, the holy presence of Jesus bespeaks of mystery — something inexplicable by human reason alone, necessitating revelation. The “mystery of faith” entails the article of faith: Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and, finally, his Parousia. The whole Church throughout the world maintains an allegiance to Christ through this subversive song that is, at the same time, a glorious confession.
[1] By “vindication,” I intend both justification by grace for their sake and the clearing of their name in public. Hence the public nature of Holy Baptism as one’s entrance into the Church (i.e., the kingdom of God).
[2] David A. deSilva, An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods and Ministry Formation. 2nd Ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2018), 815 n. 22.
